Friday, March 2, 2012

Remember a few months ago when we posted that Dr. Starr asked the Open Meetings Compliance Board to reconsider an opinion issued on July 26, 2011 that the Montgomery County Board of Education violated the Maryland Open Meetings Act when it convened a citizens committee to participate in the process that resulted in naming Dr. Starr as the new Superintendent of MCPS?

On February 29, 2012, the Open Meetings Compliance Board denied Dr. Starr's request for a reconsideration of its finding that the Board of Education violated the Open Meetings Act again. You can read the decision here.

The Open Meetings Act contains no explicit authorization or procedure for reconsideration.. . . the Board will not entertain a request for reconsideration simply because a public body submits information that it could have provided in its response to the complaint and that merely expands upon a point already considered.

The Compliance Board then found:

Here, the County Board has not presented us with new facts, and so we deny the request.

Why the Board of Education decided to pursue this appeal doesn't make sense. Is Dr. Starr unhappy? Does the Board of Education plan on another search for a Superintendent of Schools shortly? The taxpaying public will never know, because the Board of Education continues to think that it can conduct its meetings out of the public view.

As this blogger has said before, we would all be better off if the Montgomery County Board of Education learned to abide by the principles of the Open Meetings Act.

How much did this cost the good citizens of Montgomery County? The Venable bill for the two attorneys on the case came to $ 9,916.15 for 16.7 hours of work, or $5,000 per day.

And, we would have cash for other items - like textbooks, shop tools at Edison, and musical instruments.

5 comments:

Amazing. This is on top of the litigation costs associated with the second BCC middle school site selection, the Feasibility Study required by the first site selection, the "do-over" second site selection, and the litigation that will come from the second site selection.

I'm beginning to wonder when subsidiarity comes into play. In other words, at what point is the benefit of a centralized county system outweighed by the waste and bureaucratic expense inherent in such a large organization, notwithstanding the staff incompetence on which Dr. Starr has to rely?

Perhaps a starting point could be to transfer planning to county organizations that actually plan, especially in light of the fact that whatever plans the schools come up with must be refered to those organizations.

@Anonymous Mar 2 5:52 AM, there are no county organizations that 'plan.' The Planning Dep't. is the mouthpiece for the developers. I would not like to see any more control going to a Planning Dep't. that ignores the community. And regarding the 'centralized county system,' I would reiterate that independent municipalities such as Rockville would be much better off if they ran their own smaller school systems. Instead the taxpayers of Rockville have to contribute to the $2.1Billion MCPS, which as they are happy to tell you, is the '16th largest school system in the country.' This would be up to the citizens of Rockville, of course.

@Anonymous Mar 2 6:35 AM, who makes these decisions? You, the voter. You make the decisions and you are responsible for these outcomes. Elections are coming up in April. BOE candidates will be at the Civic Fed BOE Candidates' Forum on Thur,March 15th, 7:30-9:30PM at the Silver Spring Civic Building, please attend. Ask your question.

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Principles

Formed in 2002, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.

E-mail: parentscoalitionmc AT outlook.com

What the Gazette said about the Parents' Coalition

It has taken a watchdog outside group, the Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, to ferret out this waste. The coalition, driven by its sharp curiosity, frequently uses the Maryland Public Information Act to request public records and keep track of district decisions and spending.

We commend the coalition for its important work on this front. It is saving county residents money as inappropriate spending has been uncovered.

What The Washington Post said about the Parents' Coalition

The coalition might be the best-known parent advocacy group in the region. Its members represent several constituencies, including parents of special education and gifted education students and fiscal watchdogs. The group's defining victory came this school year when the school system scaled back the fees charged to families for course materials.

Coalition leaders have drawn attention to the misuse of funds collected from students for activities, the broadcast of a commercial radio service on school buses and, with their "Weast Watch" blog, the travel habits of Weast and his lieutenants.

MD Open Meetings Act Compliance Board staff says

Jerry Weast on the Parents' Coalition

"Along the way, you’ve had a challenging relationship with the Parents’ Coalition, the network of citizen activists who use the political process and other means to hold MCPS accountable.

The thing people accuse me of is listening, but not hearing. I hear, but I do not always agree. I am sorry that the world is faster than it was 10 years ago. I did not do that. [But] if we do not keep up, then our kids will be behind. We have to stop whining and get real."